M. Heydari-Malayeri - Paris Observatory

An irregular galaxy, the smaller of the two Magellanic Clouds
that are satellites of our own Galaxy, lying in the
southern constellation → Tucana.
The SMC is about 10,000 light-years
in diameter and some 200,000 light-years away.
It has a visible mass of about 1/50-th that of our Galaxy and 1/10-th of
that of the LMC. Its heavy element content is about a factor 5 smaller than that of the Galaxy.
The SMC is the third-nearest external galaxy
after the → Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy and the
→ Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC).

→ small; Magellanic
named in honor of Ferdinand Magellan, the Portuguese navigator (c 1480-1521),
who undertook the first voyage around the world. The two Clouds were first described
by Magellan's chronicler Pigafetta, after leaving the Strait of Magellan in 1520;
→ cloud.